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Being an Indie Publisher ain't
easy. It's not a way to get rich, and it's really not even a way to
break even. Maybe everyone has a different reason why they would start
publishing comics independently, but my reason is pretty simple. I just
have to. I drew my first comic book on notebook paper with colored pencils
in 1987 when I was 10 years old. And it sucked. Thankfully, my comics
improved (slowly) over the following 10 or so years. I started publishing
my comics in 2001. I love writing comics, and I'm getting more and more
into developing my style of art as well.
Indie publishers have to
balance all the same facets of life as anyone else (day job, chores,
personal life, etc) but we also have to find the time to squeeze in all
the duties of publishing that are usually done by a TEAM of paid comic
professionals (writing, drawing, lettering, web design, promoting, etc).
Sometimes you just want to relax. Sometimes you do that a little more
often than you should. Sometimes a LOT more.
So on May 16, 2007, I decided
to make a stand. I decided to try to do SOMETHING comic related EVERY DAY.
I do have some rules, which are pretty loose and apt to
change. I started this web log on July 1st 2007, and so far I HAVE
done something for my comics every day. I don't know how long it can last,
but I'm going to try.
I've
decided to chronicle my daily comic tasks right here for our readers, to
give them a peek into the creative steps and behind-the-scenes processes
that bring these stories to the page. Enjoy :) -Jay W. Davis, One Shot
Productions
Previous Blogs: [Jul-Dec 2007] - [Jan-Jun 2008] - [Jul-Dec 2008] - [Jan-Jun 2009] - [Jul-Dec 2009] -------------------
MARCH 9,
2010 On page one, I started adding flat colors to the
background. First, I used the sky color to cover the whole page, then
added the sand color in the appropriate areas. Once this was done, I
tweaked the lightness and saturation of the sky color to make it a more
pale tone. Although I pulled the original color from actual photos from
the Bahamas, real-life colors don't always work great on the page. By
tweaking it, I arrived at the a color that looks more realistic than the
real-life color (as strange as that may be). I continued adding these sky
and sands colors on pages two and three.
MARCH 8,
2010 I colored Stoic's skin, pants & hair on pages eleven
and twelve. I lifted a light green color from the cover of the original
Stoic print comic, and used that light green to color the beads that hang
in front of his ears. I added this light green bead color to all twelve
pages. Page eleven needed some minor cleanup on the people layer. I also
updated the "Coming Soon" web page to reflect the release dates for this
Stoic webcomic and the next chapter of Shadowlord. I also put the "Mark of
the Jinn" banner up with a note that volume two is currently in
production. Whoops, I guess I didn't update the "Home & News"
page yet this month, so I did today :)
MARCH 7,
2010 More progress on coloring Stoic's skin, pants & hair.
I colored these areas on pages five through ten. Also, I did further layer
separation on page nine, making an extreme foreground layer for panels 3
& 4. Pages nine and ten both needed a little further clean up,
smoothing out Stoic's outline.
MARCH 6,
2010 I added colors to Stoic's skin, pants & hair on page
four of "Stoic Sands."
MARCH 5,
2010 I added Stoic's skin color on pages two and three of the
"Stoic Sands" webcomic. I also picked a base color for his hair &
pants. It's a dark blue, which works well for solid black areas. That way,
I can add shading to make his hair look black, but the highlight areas
have a little color instead of being gray. I added this dark blue to his
hair and pants on the first three pages.
MARCH 4,
2010 I went back to the "Stoic Sands" webcomic, and started
the coloring process. First, I chose a color for Stoic's skin tone.
Then, I colored Stoic in all 4 panels of the first page.
MARCH 3,
2010 I finished the pencils on page fifty of the Shadowlord
webseries. Panels 3 and 4 will reuse some of the elements from page
forty seven, so they didn't require any backgrounds. Panel 5 is a close
shot of Shadowlord smiling, and I couldn't get it right for a long time.
For some reason, everything looked okay except the eyes. I tried over and
over, and ended up just erasing the whole panel and starting over. I
finally got a usuable panel drawn, but there are lots of erasure streaks
around the final art.
MARCH 2,
2010 I penciled and shaded the first two panels of page fifty
of the Shadowlord webseries. It's kinda surreal for me. For a long time,
the old 2002 comic was the only part I had shared of Shadowlord's journey.
Now, his story has grown so much and he's nearly at a point where he can
activate his fiery powers at will. With page fifty, I'm tying up that part
of his growth to prepare him for his next step, which will involve the
introduction of a new character who will share the spotlight with
Shadowlord in his series :)
MARCH 1,
2010 It's been THIRTY TWO months, and I've still done
something every single day :) First thing this morning, I uploaded the new
"Shadowlord: Barkstripper" chapter to the site, along with the monster's
character profile. This evening, I built some images that compare my
original thumbnail sketches to the finished artwork for this chapter (just
as I did for the previous chapter). Like last time, I've also included
some notes about each page. Once that was done, I updated the page that
contains these images and uploaded it to the site.
FEBRUARY 28,
2010 I finished the pencil work on page forty nine of the
Shadowlord webseries. Both panels involved angles that were a bit tricky.
Panel 4 shows Shadowlord looking up into the sky, but it's from a
bird's-eye-view looking down. This means I had to use the "foreshortening"
technique, to obscure parts of Shadowlord that are hidden from the parts
closer to the "camera." I worked from my thumbnail layout sketch, and this
one turned out really nice. Panel 5 was harder. It's a shot of
Shadowlord's hand as he's reaching up. Hands are tricky anyway to a novice
artist like me, so I took a picture of my hand (using a mirror to get the
angle I wanted). Once I had a digital photo, I brought it up on my
computer monitor and loosely traced it onto the paper. Once I had this
loose outline, I used my swab tools to add shadows to the hand, then made
the outlines a bit darker. That one turned out nicely too :) You know, my
art still needs a ton of improvement, but the stuff on this page shows how
far my art has improved since the original 2002 Shadowlord comic.
It's nice to see how my art continues to grow :)
FEBRUARY 27,
2010 I penciled and shaded panel 3 of page forty nine
(Shadowlord). This is the largest panel on the page, and is a close shot
of Shadowlord's big old forehead. On a separate sheet, I did some quick
doodles, which will probably be superimposed over the main art during the
digital phase. In fact, I plan to make this panel look like a jigsaw
puzzle with a couple of the pieces missing (representing Shadowlord's
missing memories). The doodles don't serve much of a purpose, except to
help add more visual interest to the panel. Like I said before, I'm doing
some things differently with this chapter to make it stand apart from the
art direction of previous chapters.
FEBRUARY 26,
2010 Pencilwork continues on the next chapter of Shadowlord. I
penciled and shaded the first two panels of page forty nine. Wow... it's
just now sinking in how many full color pages I've done for this series :)
The panels I worked on tonight are both wide, but not tall. The first one
shows Shadowlord's clenched fist at his side, the second shows an extreme
close up of his angry eyes.
FEBRUARY 25,
2010 I drew kind of a crazy panel today. Panel 5 on page forty
eight (Shadowlord webseries), shows an x-ray view of Shadowlord's head. I
looked up a few pics on the internet for visual reference first, but it
was still pretty tricky. It looked much better after I did some blended
pencil shading. Still, I'm not really sure how well this panel will turn
out once I color it to look like an actual x-ray. I'll hang on to those
reference pics I found, but I'm not feeling very optimistic about it. Is
it necessary to even show an x-ray view in this panel? Nah. So why do it?
Really, I just wanted to expand my horizons a bit with this chapter. It
could end up looking very much like the "Deficiency" chapter earlier in
the series. Instead, I wanted to make some changes to how I'm handling the
visuals of the series. Especially since this short chapter closes out the
first 50-page run of the character. I want to establish that this series
won't necessarily look the same from one chapter to the next.
FEBRUARY 24,
2010 I penciled and shaded two more panels today on page forty
eight (Shadowlord webseries). Panel 3 is a close up of Shadowlord's hands
touching his stomach (as he breathes out). Panel 4 is a medium shot, as
Shadowlord continues to flex his abdomen as he exhales.
FEBRUARY 23,
2010 Another simple, single panel. I penciled and shaded panel
2 of page forty eight (Shadowlord webseries). This one is an extreme close
up of Shadowlord with his eyes closed. The art looks pretty peaceful,
which is just what I was going for :)
FEBRUARY 22,
2010 I penciled and shaded the first panel of page forty eight
(Shadowlord webseries). It's a wide panel, but not so tall. It simply
shows our hero looking over his shoulder at Calico, who is sleeping in the
background.
FEBRUARY 21,
2010 I finished penciling the rest of page forty seven
(Shadowlord webseries). Panel 3 gave me a little trouble, but worked out
after some erasing. At first, panel 4 seemed a little too challenging too.
After some blended shading, though, it came together nicely. After that,
panel 5 was a breeze.
FEBRUARY 20,
2010 I started the process of selecting colors to the Stoic
webcomic, using photo reference from the bahamas (where the story takes
place). I really want the sky and waters to look as accurate as possible.
I selected a couple different sky hues, and about five different authentic
water hues. I'm still not feeling great, and I decided that I don't want
to make these color choices yet (after all, they'll affect twelve total
pages). At first I wasn't sure what I wanted to work on instead. Finally,
I decided to start drawing another chapter of Shadowlord. This time, it
will only be a four page chapter (unlike the 7 or 9 page ones on that
series lately). I started on the first page of the chapter, which will be
page forty seven in the series. I only penciled the first two panels.
These two wide panels actually show the same thing, but the first is
focused on a foreground element, and the other on a midground element. My
approach was to draw only the background trees in the first panel. In the
second panel, I drew the foreground and midground elements. In digital,
I'll use all the art together in both panels.
FEBRUARY 19,
2010 I'm feeling better, but still not up to doing anything
too involved. I made html pages for chapters two, three, and five of the
next "Mark of the Jinn" story. These pages basically contain the script
for its particular chapter. Chapter four was left out because I intend to
draw that one myself and won't need to access the script online. Also
tonight, I scanned & trimmed the image of the little primitive girl
and added her to the MotJ reference art page.
FEBRUARY 18,
2010 Still sick :( I made the html pages for the upcoming
Stoic webcomic, even though I won't need them for another month and a
half. It was the most mundane, non-creative, no-brainpower thing I could
think to do today.
FEBRUARY 17,
2010 Sick today :( Worst of all, I've got a headache that
feels like my skull is squeezing my brain. I didn't want to do any digital
work, because staring at a computer screen would only aggravate my
headache. I'd love to get some writing done, but there's no way I could
concentrate with my head feeling like this. I could start drawing the next
Shadowlord webcomic since it's already scripted, but how good would that
turn out today? Finally I thought of something I could do for comics
today. There's a little girl character in the next "Mark of the Jinn"
story, which I have not drawn yet. She's the only one not added to my MotJ
reference art page yet. So that's what I drew. Thankfully, I already knew
what she should look like so I didn't have to do much thinking :) I drew
her with pencil, then added inked her outline and some detail. It's not a
mind-blowing design concept, but it turned out really good.
FEBRUARY 16,
2010 There were hardly any bubbles or splashes on pages nine
through twelve (Stoic webcomic), so I moved through them pretty quickly.
There were splashes of blood, but they were much easier to deal with than
the light water splashes of the other pages. I resized a couple of pages
to show more of the original art, but that didn't take much time at all. I
probably worked about a half hour to finish these four pages, as opposed
to a couple of hours yesterday and a couple more the day
before.
FEBRUARY 15,
2010 The layer separations continue. I did pages five through
eight of the Stoic story. It seems like every panel either has
flying drops of splashing water, or rising bubbles in the underwater
shots. Cutting around a bunch of tiny bubbles on every page is getting
tedious! At least I'm two-thirds of the way through In some ways, this art
is even better than some of the Shadowlord stuff I've been working on
(which I drew after this Stoic story). I think it's because the
action is much more exaggerated here, with lots of leaping and stuff that
we don't see in the Shadowlord series yet.
FEBRUARY 14,
2010 I started doing the layer separations for the Stoic
2-parter. I separated the people layer from the background on the first
four pages. On some pages, I resized the art within the first or last
panel (shrinking them to fit in more of the original art). Some pages
required additional layers, like the panel 1 on page three. That panel has
layers for Stoic, the foreground wall, the midground trees, and the far
background. Page two may have been the most complicated. It has a
horizontal layout, which I hardly ever use. That wasn't an issue though.
The thing about that page is all the streaks and blobs of falling sand
that are part of the people layer.
FEBRUARY 13,
2010 I did a little more work on the upcoming Stoic 2-part
webcomic. I created the "frames" layer (gutters & panel borders) for
all twelve pages. On page twelve, I moved the last three panels around a
bit. In the original art, there was a wide panel at the bottom, and
two side by side panels just above that. By swapping these around, the
story ends on a close up of Stoic's face.
FEBRUARY 12,
2010 I scripted the Barkstripper origin story. It turned out
to be five pages. Most of it has to do with two characters, one of whom
becomes the creature. I could have let the story drag on for another page,
I decided instead to quicken the pace and make it a bit shorter. Though it
ends on a tense note, we don't actually see what the creature does to its
first victim. At first, I was gonna go for the gore, but I changed my
mind. I love bloody, gory action scenes in my comics, but I don't really
like to put that stuff on the website (since it's accessible to people of
all ages). Besides, it's pretty obvious what's about to happen, and I
think the reader will get that image in their head all the same. Once I
finished the script, I copied it over to the Barkstripper assignment page
for "drawthiscomic.com." I won't post this new assignment, though, until
the Barkstripper makes his debut in the new Shadowlord chapter next
month.
FEBRUARY 11,
2010 I finished the "Mark of the Jinn" visual reference page
for artists. I fixed up a number of my sketches, as well as some sketches
by Curtis Rhodes. I also included some of the real-life photos I picked up
from the web, to help artists understand some of the design elements. Each
of the four main characters got their own mini-page, containing various
art from the first story as well as a short description of the character's
personality / demeanor. With all that finished, I checked my email. Artist
D.C. White (of MotJ:Lost, ch. 3), said he could work on chapter one of the
new volume. I'm truly honored to work with artists of such caliber
:)
FEBRUARY 10,
2010 It's time to get crackin' on the second story arc of
"Mark of the Jinn." Tonight, I created an exclusive web page for use only
by Mark of the Jinn artists. This way, I can present all the visual
reference material in one place. Instead of emailing multiple art pics to
an artist, I can just email them the link to the MotJ reference page. This
page will be hosted on my "drawthiscomic.com" site, but won't be
accessible to visitors like the other assignments. First, I sketched out a
design on paper so I'd know what exactly I wanted to include. Then, I made
the html page according to that design. After that, I made two of the
reference pics. I took sketches I drew some time ago, added some text to
help get the point across, and cropped off unnecessary portions. I also
surfed the net for photos of a couple specific types of fruit which will
appear in some scenes of the new story. There's still more to be done
though :) Oh, and I emailed the artist chosen for chapter one, to see if
he's ready to get started!
FEBRUARY 9,
2010 You know that Stoic story I drew waaaay back last fall?
I'm finally close to doing something with it! I intend to chop that twelve
page story in half, and present it as two webcomic updates. Not next
month, but for the two after that. Tonight, I started the earliest part of
the prep work. I converted each page from a simple "jpg" to a "tif" file
(which can handle layers). I convert the color scans to grayscale,
eliminating any of the weird little color pixels that show up from
scanning in color. Then, I converted it back to RGB (color) since I intend
to add colors later. So why don't I just scan in black & white? Ugh.
It's just how I do it, and I don't have a good reason why :) I reduced the
size of the images by 60%, bringing them much closer to the actual print
size. I then add a black border around the whole page, leaving only a 6 x
9.5" area visible (this is the "live area," the part that shows in print
or in the webcomic). By doing this, I can keep the focus of my work with
this live area, while still leaving a little extra art around in case I
have to move or resize a panel. It didn't take very long to do all this to
all twelve pages. I'm not ready to go any further on that project tonight.
Also, I typed up the Barkstripper origin from the notebook manuscript I
wrote a few days ago.
FEBRUARY 8,
2010 I created the html pages for the "Barkstripper" chapter
of Shadowlord. I also wrote a profile for the creature, and updated the
character profile page to include the monster (and the Shadowlord title
page).
FEBRUARY 7,
2010 Ah... more writing tonight. It feels good to do something
that doesn't involve graphics for a change :) I wrote the first section of
a story involving an unpublished character I created last Spring (the one
with the horse). I've recently re-thought the core relationship between
the horse and rider, and have come up with one I think will be relatable
and more interesting. Plus, this new twist makes for a great narrative
hook when revealed in the section I wrote tonight :)
FEBRUARY 6,
2010 I wrote a new draft of the Barkstripper monster's origin.
The main event is the same, but I wrote the dialogue from scratch. I tried
to keep it short (though not sweet), and escalate the emotions quickly.
There is a lot of repetition in what one character says, but he's in an
emergency situation so I think it's realistic. What I wrote covered three
pages of notebook paper. It's still in short story form, but will
eventually be scripted for use on "drawthiscomic.com".
FEBRUARY 5,
2010 From my recent Shadowlord art, I created three profile
pictures of the "Barkstripper" monster. I also made a vertical banner for
drawthiscomic.com featuring the monster, since I intend to post his origin
story there as a drawing assignment. I prepped about nine images of the
monster for use with that site. Prep work included cropping & resizing
images, adding a copyright blurb, and sometimes adding a note onto the
image. I started a web page for the origin story, but I haven't added the
script yet. I know I've written the origin already, but I don't know if
I've converted it into a script. It doesn't matter. I'll likely write it
again from memory. For now, the web page only contains images and a
summary of the story. I won't actually post it on the other site until
it's complete.
FEBRUARY 4,
2010 Okay, I finally did the sound effects for pages forty two
through forty six (Shadowlord webseries). I know I've gone on a
tirade about my dislike for sound effects, but they were quite necessary
here. With a monster that doesn't speak, this chapter is really inspired
by the old slasher / horror movies I saw as a kid. As I try to build
tension in this story, we get such SFX gems as "SKRIIIIITCH" and "WHUMP"
and "KER-RACK." I have to admit that these scenes would be less effective
without the sound effects, but I'm going to chalk that up to the type of
genre this chapter employs. As a rule, I still dislike sound effects :)
Afterward, I flattened each page (i.e., combined multiple layers into a
single layer), saved them as "jpg" format images, and resized them for use
on the web. I also added the copyright blurb to each of the nine pages. So
that wraps up the last of my digital work on this chapter. Good thing too,
because I've got a few new projects bubbling up in my brain that I want to
get started on!
FEBRUARY 3,
2010 Tonight, I did all the spoken and narrative lettering on
pages forty two through forty six (Shadowlord webseries). I'm still
avoiding the sound effects, so I can do them all in one sweep
:)
FEBRUARY 2,
2010 After working at my day job, I rushed home, picked up my
awesome wife, then headed to the FedEx Forum to watch WWE Smackdown with
the tickets she won today. I didn't get home until 11pm, and immediately
went to work on lettering more Shadowlord. I didn't get much done. Since I
typed all the text yesterday, I used my time this evening to create the
word balloons for the the first four pages (not counting sound effects,
which I will deal with separately). Some panels, you make the oval and a
tail, and it works great on the first try. Other times, I make oval after
oval trying to get the right fit for the words, or I just can't get the
tail to be the right proportion to the balloon. At least the narration
goes in a simple rectangle (although it can be hard to make the sentences
fit with no awkward spaces). These four pages went pretty smoothly. I'd
prefer to get more done tonight, but I'm too tired to do a good job on any
more pages.
FEBRUARY 1,
2010 THIRTY ONE months so far, and I'm still going :) First
thing this morning, I uploaded the new Shadowlord webcomic. I updated the
"Home & News" page to reflect the new addition. I updated the "Coming
Soon" page to show the next chapter due in March. I began lettering on the
monster chapter of Shadowlord tonight. Many times, I spend so much time on
the art (doing clean-up, separations, shading, coloring, etc), that I
don't really remember what the characters or narration says. So tonight, I
read the script as I'm lettering, and I think "hey, this is pretty
good." There's still some changes and edits to do, but I'm happy with
the pacing and most of the word choices.
JANUARY 31,
2010 I shaded the people layer for page forty six, which means
I'm finished with the digital shading for this monster chapter of the
Shadowlord webseries. Most of the page was routine, but there's a view in
panel 3 of the old house with light coming from inside. This was one of
those trial & error processes to get to the final version. I thought I
could make some kind of glowing sphere inside the represent the light
source, but that never looked right. Instead, I just lit up the door and
windows with a bright yellow, and some orange glow around it. It looks
better than what I pictured. Unlike the other pages, this one has a blue
tone over the whole page (instead of orange). This is because the
characters are back outside, and this time they don't carry a light
source. I like how this change in hue adds a sort of punctuation to the
story. Also today, I did a lot of prep work to tomorrow's webcomic
ready to be uploaded to the site. It's the chapter titled "Fishy." After
building the html pages to hold each page of artwork, I made an extra html
page with some bonus content. On this bonus page, I share a side by side
comparison of the finished art next to the original thumbnail sketch. I
made an image for each showing the thumbnail sketch, final art, and some
notes about the page.
JANUARY 30,
2010 All four panels of page forty five contain fire, which
altered to match the previous pages. Panels 2, 3 & 4 each touch an
edge, and needed the glow effect trimmed. Everything else on the page was
pretty routine. In panel 2, I added a little more shading to the monster's
skin texture since we see it close up. Also tonight, I scanned a number of pages including
thumbnail sketches of the Shadowlord webseries and reference drawings for
the next "Mark of the Jinn" story.
JANUARY 29,
2010 Page forty four (Shadowlord webseries) took a little
longer than some pages. It's only six panels (which is pretty standard),
but there are a lot of action shots. In panels 1 & 2 things are
getting torn apart. There's hitting & stabbing in a couple of panels,
and there's blood spilling in panel 4. I particularly like panels 4 &
5 on this page. I'm pleased with how this chapter looks, but I'm glad it's
nearing an end :)
JANUARY 28,
2010 I did the foreground shading of page forty three
(Shadowlord webseries). This page had another situation where the fire
glow effect was overlapping the edge of the panel (like yesterday). But
this time I was able to fix it quickly, using the same technique as
yesterday. Otherwise, this was a rather simple page. This is the page that
has a big reveal shot of the monster, and I decided not to shade him too
much. As a reader, I'd want a clear view of what the heck Shadowlord is
running from, so that's what I delivered. That's one of the things that
bugged me about the movie "Cloverleaf." You see pieces of the monster the
whole time or you see the whole thing from too close or to far away. I
didn't want to be guilty of the same thing :)
JANUARY 27,
2010 Page forty two (Shadowlord webseries) was actually little
more complicated than the other pages in this chapter The flame in panel 3
presented a problem because it touches the edges of the frame. The problem
came when I added the glow effect eminating from the flame. This caused
the glow to extend into the panels below and beside it. I fixed it, though
I did so in a really complicated way involving a number of steps by making
the flame and its glow on two separate layers. I'm sure there was an
easier way, but I don't know what it is :) The other complicating factor
here is the broken & flying debris in panel 4. There are multiple
layers working in that panel (background, monster arm, "swoosh" lines, and
the debris). It wasn't really a challenging layer, just time consuming.
And for some reason, the people layer and its color layer always seemed to
have little places that didn't sync up (that is, little white or grey
flecks where the color didn't reach). Eventually, I combined these into a
single layer, and just trimmed those crappy little nuisances.
JANUARY 26,
2010 I finished all the people / foreground shading on pages
forty and forty one of the Shadowlord webseries. I altered the fire to
match the previous two pages, and added that slight orange hue enitrely
over both pages.
JANUARY 25,
2010 Finished the shading on page thirty nine. Panels 2 &
4 were completely done already (because I previously included them as
backgrounds). I shaded Shadowlord in panels 1, 3 & 5. I changed the
fire layers in 1 & 5 to match what I did with the page from yesterday.
In panel 3, I used a thin shading tool to add some texture to Shadowlord's
hair, since it's such a close-up shot.
JANUARY 24,
2010 I finished the rest of page thirty eight (Shadowlord
webseries). I shaded the few foreground elements (Shadowlord, firewood,
& smoke), which didn't take long. I spent a lot of time tweaking the
fire, though. I just didn't like the way it looked. I added a soft orange
glow around the flame. I also erased the harsh pencil outline, which
helped soften its look. Then I added a soft orangy layer over the entire
page, to simulate the hue cast by firelight (as opposed to
sunlight).
JANUARY 23,
2010 Page forty six (Shadowlord webseries) really didn't have
much background. I added the forest floor / dirt texture to panels 1 &
3. I heavily darkened both these panels, since it's outdoors & at
night. In panel 3, I added a glow coming from inside the house. I blacked
out the treeline in panel 3, only showing the three closest trees in
color. Above the treeline, I added a dim glow as if the sun is just about
to rise. I went ahead and shaded the trees in panel 1, even though they're
part of my foreground layer. I left the foreground trees on the rest
of the page for another time.
JANUARY 22,
2010 Another routine coloring of backgrounds, this time for
page forty five (Shadowlord webseries). This page focuses on action, so
there wasn't much detail in the backgrounds to start with. I made the
first panel very dark on the outer edges to contrast with the bright light
source in the center. The second panel has almost no background. The other
two panels are the last of the interior shots in this chapter, I am happy
to say. I've learned a lot from shading this chapter, but I wouldn't want
to do chapters this dark all the time :)
JANUARY 21,
2010 Page forty four of the Shadowlord webseries. was pretty
routine. I shaded the backgrounds, and ther wasn't anything particularly
tricky. Again, the light source (a torch) was coming from somehwere on the
floor, but it didn't throw me off.
JANUARY 20,
2010 Page forty three of the Shadowlord webseries got the
shading treatment tonight. This page wasn't too tricky. The thing about
these indoor pages is that the only light source is the torch that
Shadowlord holds. It's quite different from shading when there's a
universal light source like the sun or an overhead lightbulb. The rooms
are darker than most of the other pages I've worked on, and the characters
cast harsh shadows on the walls. It's not hard really, but I have to pay
attention and be sure I know where the torch is (even if it's somewhere
off-panel). In panel 4, for instance, the torch is somewhere on the floor
so the light comes from the bottom of the panel. I'm still just working on
backgrounds, and haven't started shading Shadowlord or the monster yet.
Normally, I shade the characters first, but I'm doing backgrounds
first this time to get all the lighting right (since this lighting is so
different from my usual work).
JANUARY 19,
2010 I shaded all the backgrounds of page forty two
(Shadowlord webseries). Panel 1 was a snap since there's nothing but some
dirt and a light source :) The other four panels were pretty routine, and
turned out well. On panel 4, there is a lot of broken splinters of wood
flying around, so I shaded those too.
JANUARY 18,
2010 The backgrounds on pages forty and forty one got some
attention today (Shadowlord webseries). On forty, I added the dirt layer
to panel 2, and darkened almost all of it except for an oval of light
created by the torch. Panels 3 through 7 take up the bottom half of that
page, and are all inside the old barn. Shading this was a learning
experience. I haven't had to deal with this level of shading on a color
webcomic before. There are horizontal and angled lines along all the
background walls. I continued learning as I shaded the backgrounds on page
forty one, because two panels include the floor as well. With the torch
laying on the dirt floor, I rendered a light source effect behind the
flame. This helped give me an idea of the radius of bright light
surrounding the torch. The shaded in wide arcs further out from the light,
getting darker along the way. I was a bit nervous about working on this
chapter, but so far it's shaping up just how I wanted :)
JANUARY 17,
2010 I worked a little on page thirty nine of the Shadowlord
webseries. I darkened the skinny little trees in panels 1 & 2. In
panels 3 & 4, the monster is scraping his claws on a tree trunk. I
heavily shaded the tree and the monster in each of these panels. Looking
at them now, they look really dark. It was no accident
though. The scene takes place in the woods at night, so I really want all
the outdoor panels to be super dark.
JANUARY 16,
2010 I worked on the backgrounds on page thirty nine
(Shadowlord webseries). I added the dirt texture to the first and last
panels, and shaded them. I heavily shaded the trees in panels 1, 2 &
4. I want this whole chapter to be darkly lit, so I'm using a lot more
digital shading than usual.
JANUARY 15,
2010 I added flat colors to almost all the remaining
background elements on pages thirty nine through forty six (Shadowlord
webseries). This included a dirt color for the floor inside the old house
and changing the color of the wooden door (from gray to a raw wood color).
In all the indoor panels, I blacked out the empty windows and open doors
since it's night (and there is no light source outside).
JANUARY 14,
2010 More colors added to pages thirty nine through forty six
(Shadowlord webseries). On page thirty nine, there was a tree in the
extreme foreground, and a number of trees in the middle and background
areas. I colored these trees, which weren't included on the main
foreground layer that I've already worked on. On pages forty through forty
five, I added a dull gray color to the walls inside the old barn. Pages
forty two and forty three show a wooden ladder in the background, which I
also colored. I left the floor area blank on these pages (for now).
There's a makeshift door on some of these pages, which I colored the same
as the wooden walls. I expect, though, to change the color of the door at
a later time.
JANUARY 13,
2010 This monster chapter of the Shadowlord webseries is
taking forever! Tonight, I added a red color over the flames on seven
pages (out of nine) for this chapter. Most were small flames from far
away, with a few close-up exceptions. Once the red color was in place, I
used a tool to airbrush in a lighter yellow hue to prevent the fire from
looking flat. It worked out well. I also added a gray tone to the smoke on
several pages, since I skipped that (along with the fire) when coloring
other stuff.
JANUARY 12,
2010 I added the colors on page forty six of the Shadowlord
webseries, the last page of that particular chapter. I also added color to
the monster on five other pages, wherever he appeared. To pick the color
to use on the monster, I started with a normal peach-like fleshtone. I
colored the panel that shows the best view of the monster, then altered
the color saturation until it looked duller and more gray. Once I had this
color, I saved it on my color palette and colored the other panels
involving the monster.
JANUARY 11,
2010 I did cleanup on pages forty four and forty five
(Shadowlord webseries). I added color to the people layer / foreground
elements, except for the monster and flames again. These pages contain
action, which makes them a bit more complicated to color (because many
objects touch or overlap). Also today, I got an email from artist Curtis
Rhodes containing a couple of sketches. Curtis is helping me prepare for
the next "Mark of the Jinn" story by drawing sketches of the new
characters from my designs. These sketches will be provided to the other
artists involved to provide a consistent look for these characters. No
surprise, his sketches looked great :)
JANUARY 10,
2010 More digital cleanup today. I worked on pages forty one
through forty three (Shadowlord webseries). I also added color to the
foreground elements on these pages, except for the monster and the torch
flames.
JANUARY 9,
2010 I did digital cleanup on pages thiry nine and forty
(Shadowlord webseries). I added most of the colors to the people
layer of those pages and the one before. Normally, I like to add all the
colors to that layer before moving on. This time, the monster (or some of
it) is shown on page thirty eight, and I haven't picked a color for it
yet. It'll have a flesh tone like a corpse, I'm just not ready to
zero in on it just yet. So instead, I colored Shadowlord on those three
pages, and trees and stuff that appeared in the foreground layer, too. Not
the fire though, I'll color the campfire and torches all at one
time.
JANUARY 8,
2010 First, I tinkered with the new title logo from a couple
days ago. The only change I kept was to stretch the letters to make them
taller. Afterward, I moved on to the Shadowlord webseries. I resized the
raw art of pages thirty eight through forty six, making them smaller than
the giant 11x17" original art. I also built the "frames" layer of each of
these nine pages, creating the panel borders and gutters between panels. I
did a little digital cleanup & erasing on page thirty eight,
too.
JANUARY 7,
2010 To my surprise, I lettered all of the next chapter of the
Shadowlord webseries (pages thirty one through thirty seven). This was
only a surprise because I haven't looked at the script in some time. There
was almost no text on the first page, and the rest of the pages had only a
modest amount. With that done, I resized and reformatted the images to be
internet-ready. I also added the copyright info into each image. Then I
lifted images from a few pages to add to the character profiles section.
This inculdes that great shot of "Dark Warrior" from page thirty seven,
and made that his selection thumb too. I pulled one image of Shadowlord
and one of Calico for their respective profiles (though I didn't change
their selection thumbs). Speaking of selection thumbs, I used a really
nice shot of the fish on page thirty one as the thumbnail image for this
chapter (for use on the Shadowlord title and webcomic pages). I stared at
the screen for a long time as I tried to finally conjure a name for this
important, yet action-less chapter. I nearly named it "Fish Story,"
referring to the hard-to-believe information Shadowlord learns at the end
of the chapter. But it didn't quite stick. Ultimately, I simply named this
chapter "Fishy." It's only one week into this month, and I've already
finished next month's webcomic! This is a relief, as I was worried about
tackling the following chapter which is nine pages. Wait... Fish? Tackle?
Sorry :)
JANUARY 6,
2010 For over an hour, I browsed and downloaded free fonts
from the internet. I plan to create a logo soon for the robot print comic
I'm publishing this year. Before I get started, I need a suitable font. I
downloaded about fifteen different ones, then typed the comic's title in
each font so I could compare them next to each other. I narrowed the
choices down to one, but I didn't like the way two of the letters looked.
I altered the "A" and the "J" to get them to look how I wanted. After
that, I added stars and stripes to the logo to make it more patriotic
(which relates to the content of the book). That was a slow process, as I
pieced the stripes together one or two letters at a time. I also added
some circuitry to part of the logo (which also relates to the content of
the book). I'm not quite finished with the logo yet, but I've made a lot
of progress tonight :)
JANUARY 5,
2010 I was able to color the backgrounds of pages thirty six
and thirty seven of the Shadowlord webseries. These pages weren't so
tough. Thirty six was particularly easy, because there were a lot of shots
where the foreground elements take up most of the panels. There's not much
room for backgrounds, and I blurred what little background showed in each
panel (to focus on the foreground elements). Thirty seven had a wide panel
that had a lot of trees in the background, as well as plenty of dirt
texture. The rest of that page was like the previous one, and I blurred
most of that, too. The last panel on page thirty seven is one of my
favorites of this series, as it shows a really diabolical grin on the face
of the "Dark Warrior" character. I definitely plan on adding that to his
character profile. I also added a finishing touch to the people layer in
that panel, by darkening the perimeter of his eyeballs :)
JANUARY 4,
2010 The backgrounds of page thirty five got colors today.
This one was a bit tedious, because there is a lot of background space in
all three panels. There are trees and some greenery in each, as well as
some ground areas. I still use the "dirt texture" I made for the first
Shadowlord webcomic, but it has to be skewed and tweaked so it looks like
it belongs in each panel. I had some digitally-drawn trees to go in front
of the old barn in panel 3, but I decided to leave them out from the final
version.
JANUARY 3,
2010 I colored the backgrounds of pages thirty three and
thirty four (Shadowlord webseries). These were a bit easier to get
through, and didn't have as much interaction with the people
layer.
JANUARY 2,
2010 I did all the background colors on page thirty two for
the Shadowlord webseries. This page was a bit complicated. Panels 3, 4
& 5 are all from the same POV as we watch Shadowlord throw a temper
tantrum. Keeping panels consistent can be a bit tricky, especially with
trees and water as part of the scenery. Thankfully, I learned some
techniques yesterday that saved me a little time. Now I'm wondering about
those indoor backgrounds of the chapter after this. It might be easier if
I can just slap one solid color over it and not do much else :)
JANUARY 1,
2010 Happy New Year!!
It's been THIRTY months, and I've still done something absolutely every
day for my comics. Last year was really productive, as I slightly
exceeded my goal of publishing a new webcomic every month :) I really
wanted to increase the amount of content in my webcomic section, and that
did the trick! This morning, I posted the final chapter of "Mark of the
Jinn: Lost," bringing my first web mini-series to a close. It was so fun
working with a lot of artists on a single project. In addition to posting
the final MotJ chapter, I also uploaded the character profiles for "Mei"
and the "Hydrones." When testing the pages, though, I found that the
Hydrone page didn't contain any information. I know I wrote a detailed
chunk of info about these fish-men, but I must not have saved it. Bummer!
I wrote it again today, as I remember the main points from last time. I
spent the rest of the evening adding digital colors to the background of
page thirty one (Shadowlord webseries). It took some time to learn how to
deal with things differently since this art is all blended pencil. It's
trickier to highlight areas with graded shading like that, as opposed to
simple black & white line art. I got the hang of it, though. One panel
took up a lot more time than any other, and that was panel 3, which shows
a fish just below the surface of the water. There was a lot of trial &
error to give it the right look, and I digitally airbrushed highlights and
shadows to create a ripple effect. There are no other shots in this
chapter that will need this :)
This website as well as all characters and
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